


Parasite

by RoryFrankenstein



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bloodplay, Comfort/Angst, Dark Bonnie, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Sexual Tension, mild dark bonkai, post-merge kai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-15 14:55:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5789710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoryFrankenstein/pseuds/RoryFrankenstein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'She doesn't know why, but she needs him to look at her. She needs him to see it, her lack of remorse, the power which courses through her at the sight of his pain. In a way, it excites her.' Post 6x17-snow-scene AU. Bonnie stabs Kai, but doesn't leave him in 1903. Internal conflict, angst and a particular brand of hunger ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> Posted this on Tumblr and ff.net, but decided to post it here, too. Partially beta'ed. Three parts.

I

Her satisfaction is short-lived.

 _His_ blood on _her_ knife hasn’t even dried before Elena tells her. _Kai_.

“Why didn’t you tell me before I-”

“I didn’t know Damon was going to come up with the idea to leave him here! It’s like you guys… You and Damon, you talk- you talk about stuff, just you two, scheming, and I- Damon didn’t tell me.” Elena looks dejected, her brown eyes all doe-eyed and tearful. As though considering there’s a part of Damon’s life that’s not about her leads to many a sleepless nights and profound agony.

For once, however, Bonnie doesn’t feel it. It doesn’t hit her in that sweet spot, that _Elena_ spot, the one that makes her want to give Elena everything. Maybe it’s the cold snow seeping through the cracks of her boots. Or maybe the spot is hidden underneath her rage now, her now permanent state of rage. Like her grandmother’s necklace underneath piles and piles of coats at Vicky Donovan’s birthday party that one time. She’d spent so long trying to find it. 1994 must have robbed her of it, of her need to provide comfort and reassurance to anyone but herself. Add it to the list of things 1994 took from her. _Gave her_ , she thinks for a second, but she pushes the thought away.

 _“_ Well, _Damon_ should have told me about Kai being linked to his damn coven-,” Her voice cracks, silencing her. A part of her is grateful for it. It isn’t of Elena’s concern how much it hurts. Damon lied to her, again. He’s been doing that a lot since she came back. And it hurts like hell. Bonnie predicts another aneurysm in his near future. Like she caused after he’d brought Kai to see her at the rave. _Kai_ , the last person she’d wanted to see. And it took one day, just one, for her to be back from 1994 and for Damon to take advantage of what they’d come to mean to each other because of it.

 _Damn him_.

“Damon should have told me, because now Kai could be anywhere,” she finally states.

“I know, but I guess he wanted to help Stefan and get his mom back. And I love Damon- God, I love him so much I can’t breathe, but… This is what he does, he’s so reckless. Once he wants something, he doesn’t stop, you know?” She does, she knows, but she doesn’t say it. She can’t tell Elena that she knows _exactly_ what Damon does. She was alone with him for four months, after all. So completely isolated, and now she even knows him better than she ever knew Elena.

“Okay, so, what now? Damon is still in there trying to convince Lily to leave without her family of vampires- which Damon _also_ conveniently forgot to mention.”

“We have to find him. If Kai dies in here, then so do Liv and Jo. Bonnie, I know that he hurt you, but…” Bonnie scoffs. _Hurt_ is such a small word. “I can’t lose Stefan and watch _Alaric_ lose another woman he loves. Not after Isobel and Jenna- he loves Jo so much already.” Elena reaches out to her, pulls her in for a hug. Bonnie resists rolling her eyes. “Look, I’ll go and find him, okay? You stay here with Damon. I think Kai will be a little more inclined to listen to someone who didn’t just… _stab_ him.”

Bonnie can’t argue with that. Nor does she trust herself not to try again.

 

-XXXXXXXX-

 

When Elena returns, Damon has managed to convince Lily that they’ll come back for her family. Kai is right behind Elena. Bonnie feels a small shiver run down her spine when she sees him wincing in pain at the wounds she’s caused. When he finally lays eyes on her, just for a moment, his gaze is stoic and cold; there’s not even a hint of the fake brightness she saw in his eyes earlier. She’s woken him up, she thinks. The him underneath, the animal, the one she knows. He _has_ to be in there, she insists, he just has to be. But when they approach her, he doesn’t say a word. There’s no snark, no biting comment, no witty joke. She’s never known him to be silent.

He doesn’t look at her again, not even when she pulls out the knife again for her blood, or as she holds out the ascendant. Even as they begin to cast the spell, his eyes avoid hers, look at anything but her, while hers unwittingly seek his out. It sparks her rage like only he can. She doesn’t know why, but she needs him to look at her. She needs him to see it, her lack of remorse, the power which courses through her at the sight of his pain. In a way, it excites her.

The words of the spell escape from her lips, repeatedly like a mantra, without even having to think of it. At the last word, right before that blinding white light, his eyes finally find hers for a moment and she feels it. That rush. Power. Adrenaline. Perhaps even pleasure, like a high that hardens her nipples.

It’s a familiar feeling, admittedly. It’s not the first time she’s felt that high around him, this euphoric state after bringing him down to his knees. Like in 1994 when she’d outsmarted him in the cave and had sent away her magic, or when she’d blown him up at the hospital and ran. Despite her fear, it had made her feel so _good_ , so strong and energized. Powerful. But there couldn’t be a high without a low and each one came with everything inside of her screaming to call it fury, hatred and the rush of her wrath bestowed upon him instead.

Moments later, when they step foot on the soil of their own world, he vanishes into thin air. It’s almost as if she’s dreamed it, as though Kai was never there at all. 

 

-XXXXXXXX-

 

“Are you okay?”

 _No_ , she thinks.

“I’m fine,” she’s met with apparent disbelief, “Why?”

“Nothing, just… You’ve barely touched your plate, like, at all. I specifically asked the waiter for curly fries, I thought you loved those?”

Three days after 1903, Stefan’s brooding hero hair has returned to its former glory. One look at his mother was apparently all it took. Caroline, on the other hand, is still humanity free and slightly bitchier. Occasionally, she drops by at their dorm when she knows she won’t run into Stefan or Elena. Or anyone but Bonnie, really. 

The diner is nearly empty, with only three filled booths of customers enjoying an early dinner. It’s the same place where she met up with Kai before their trip to 1903. _Come on, it’ll be fun_ , he’d said.

Bonnie looks down at it, at her plate still full of cold fries. She’d tried to stuff a fry - or two - in her mouth about ten minutes ago. But like everything else since she’s been back, the taste of it was bland and unsatisfying. Everything in her fridge might as well be laced with cyanide, given how she’s come to avoid it all.

She can’t help but wonder if it’s because of him that her food tastes differently, if he is watching her now, messing with her, _planning_ something for her. The suspense builds with each day. Kai is every shadow and movement in the corner of her eye. Every sound is one that he could have made and one that startles her. Not to mention how every gush of wind makes her skin crawl as though it’s his cloaked breath on her skin.

“I’m just not that hungry,” she lies.

“When’s the last time you ate anything?”

“What are you implying, Elena?”

“I mean, I know my eating habits aren’t exactly normal, because, well, I’m not _human_. But you, on the other hand, though a human of the witchy variety, _don’t_ have a habit of gorging on blood bags. And you’re not acting like yourself.”

“Well, I was technically dead for months-”

“I know, but-”

“And _maybe_ if one of you had told me about that link- how do you expect me to _act like myself_ when he could be around the corner to make sure I actually stay dead this time?!”

“I’m just worried about you, Bonnie! How can I not be?” Elena’s cold hands cover her warm ones, squeezing them lightly, “If he does try to hurt you, then I’m here, and there’s Damon, and we got Stefan back, too, and we’re working on Caroline… Plus, if you need more witchy back-up, then I bet Jo and Liv are more than eager to take him down a notch, too. We’ll all keep you safe, I promise.”

“Because that’s worked wonderfully in the past,” she mutters underneath her breath.

Loaded silence follows. And relief. For a second she longs for the days of having the world all to herself. Elena gets back to her own plate, eyeing Bonnie carefully every now and then. Elena’s gaze is unbearable to her, as is her presence. Just about anyone’s presence, in fact. Nothing feels right anymore. Strangely enough, No-Humanity Caroline has become one of the only people Bonnie doesn’t mind being around, the only one whose presence doesn’t make her feel like she’s drowning.

They’ve come to some sort of understanding now, an unspoken agreement to leave the other be. The first two times Bonnie caught Caroline sneaking into the dorm, she tried to convince her to turn on her humanity. She talked of pain needing to be felt and how it would get better. On her third try, right after Caroline had forced her to listen to a rendition of an old song she’d never heard of and never wanted to hear again, Bonnie realized _she_ didn’t even believe her own words.

 _“You were locked up for months and you’re here lecturing me about pain?! Stop worrying about little ol’ me, I’ve never felt better. Not giving a damn is all the rage these days. You should try it.”_   

Somehow, though, No-Humanity Caroline reminds her of Kai, triggers thoughts of how he was in 1994. His absence unnerves her more than his presence in his prison. The memory of that euphoric high when she hurt him taunts her like a hangnail or a loose thread in a piece of fabric that she can’t help but pull. It’s like a ticking clock, like a countdown for demolition. And ever since they got back, she’s felt it. Flutters in her gut and knots in her stomach. The knots feel like an unmet need, a constant reminder like a crying, hungry infant. It feels as though she’s lacking something.

_Him?_

She kills the thought with her rage.

 

-XXXXXXXX-

 

Day four, day five, her head is filled with him.

One thought lights a fuse that sets it in motion. Is Kai inside of her, somehow, like a parasite? Would she wither away, eventually? Would there be anything left of her but a hollow shell? A drained human carcass?

Bonnie wonders if it’s not the world around her but the world within. In a sense, it feels as though Kai’s ruining her beyond repair. _Has_ already ruined her. _Has he?_ Ruined, crushed… _killed_. Maybe Kai’s killed her, the old Bonnie. _Jeremy Gilbert’s_ Bonnie. Kai had lured _that_ Bonnie in despite her wariness and killed her. Curiously, she’d consumed him as though he was foreign candy and he’d turned out to be nothing but poison. Something for her to choke on in eternal solitude.

But she’d picked herself up, put herself first. She’d resurrected herself with her rage, now scorching like a fire strong enough to burn down the world. And him with it. Her rage surges through her like electricity and lights up everything around her, smashes glasses into walls and sets fire to her possessions. But Bonnie likes it, relishes in it. She _lets_ it. Magic runs through her veins like never before.

And, still, Kai eats away at her, incessantly gnaws at her brain like a famished beast.

She’s never felt this unsettled. Her magic feels unstable and uncontrolled. As if the source of her magic is tainted now, as if _she_ herself is tainted at her core. _Rotten_ , she thinks. There’s a new fear of herself and her own power that she can’t shake. Dark, untapped power just out of reach; a sweet, sweet promise of pure bliss. With each chomp at her insides, the parasite feeds a new craving that’s stuck to her like a ball and chain around her neck. Along with bitter, crippling shame.

This is why she’d smothered it.

When it presented itself after the rave, that dark rage like a band aid to cover the bullet hole he’d left, Bonnie had welcomed it a smile of relief. Bonnie had _wanted_ it more than anything, _longed_ to be consumed by it. There was no internal war in her mind, no battle to hold on to the light inside of her. To that bravery, that loyalty, that patience. She’d exchanged it all for that dark hatred in her heart.

And yet… it lives. It cries out in starved agony. And it’s more frightening than any loss of light. So, desperately, she clings to hating him. She can’t stop. It’s as good of a medicine as any. It dulls the senses, masks the thought of how the worst- the _worst_ part of what he did was leave her alone and how it makes her sick that she ever trusted him to stay. That trust was even there at all. It kills the thought of how she fell into his trap because he’d looked at her like _that…_ and it’d sparked enough to make her wonder if, perhaps…

He’s ruining her.

Even in the darkness, he’s still under her skin.

Her hatred is valid, she knows that, she does. He’s provided her with a lifetime of material. But it serves as nothing but a thin veil, the appetizer she fools herself into thinking is a grand, seven course meal. Underneath it all, underneath the scars and scabs and layers of hardened skin, all she finds is _that_ , that hunger, the parasite at her core. Naked, sick, hollow, and hungry. _Starved_.

 _Her_ parasite. Hers and hers alone.

 _His?_ She crushes the thought like it’s Kai himself. 

 

-XXXXXXXX- 

 

Somewhere along the way, it shifts.

It _evolves_.

Later, she’ll tell herself it must have started on day six. That she was sane before then. Healthy. Struggling and furious, but okay.

The knots and flutters start to feel like tight rubber bands stretching farther with each passing minute. Tick, tick, tick- _Snap._ The suspense reveals its hidden nature. When she finally finds the word for it, when Bonnie realizes her suspense has transformed into perverse anticipation, it becomes nausea. _Sickness_. She must be sick, she thinks. The parasite fights her with all his might, burns like acid in her throat before she rids herself of it. But the anticipation remains, makes her stomach growl as soon as it’s out of her system. Her parasite regenerates, she realizes. Cut it off, _throw it up,_ and a new part of it, of him, grows back.

She refuses to call it anything but that, a parasite.

Desire, it is not.

Bonnie knows what desire means, and this… This is not it. To _desire_ Kai seems like an impossibility. A conundrum, if there ever was any. To her, desire implies want and longing, and voluntary submission. Not a parasitic urge, not an ache, not an anxious _need_ that makes her want to crawl out of her skin and seek out her very own destruction. Desire implies love, she thinks. Past love and sweetness, safety and warmth. Something good. Wishful. _Clean_. Not a scar on her chest in the shape of Kai Parker. There’s no goodness in him, she thinks. He’s a monstrous void, she thinks. Depravity she can’t submit to. _Won’t_.

But whatever it is, it’s there. It pulls at her limbs to drag her down. This unmet need, the parasite, is a beast inside of her that craves his _filth_ and the taste of his skin.

On day six, almost seven, on her bed at night, she doesn’t kill the thought before it can sink in. _Him. His. Them_. The cry that escapes her lips sounds harrowing. A corrupted cry from airless lungs. Strangled, familiar. She hears it every night when it drowns out the call of her weeping, hungry parasite, and the throbbing of her flesh. When she lies awake, resisting, fighting the urge for relief when all she sees is him. Drenched, soaking wet, untouched but overstimulated as though one simple brush of her palm could set her off.

And every night, her eyes close and she slips. Her resilience falters for a split second, but it’s enough. Bonnie imagines nothing but Kai. She imagines his hard cock filling her up, imagines scratching open his shoulder blades until the blood gushes down his back and drips onto her thighs. Flashes fill her mind and tight tension coils low in her belly, as she imagines feeling his teeth sink into her breasts as she comes, and slicing open his neck with the same knife he used to stab her. She tosses and turns in her bed, writhing in her sheets, aching for the taste of his sweat. She envisions the look in his eyes when the life leaves his body and her fingers running through his dark brown hair as he sucks on her clit, parts her folds and drinks her juices.

Her own moans escaping from her lips wake her up and her next cry is as agonizing as the first. Flesh still throbbing, she runs her nails over her scar, digs them into her sensitive skin to remind herself. It stings, hurts like a bitch, hurts like Kai’s knife.

 _Good_ , she thinks. _This is why I run_. 

Every time, Bonnie runs from it, runs as fast as she can, and finds comfort in the darkness to repress it and him and his bloodstained hands. Dark, blind hatred embraces her like its weeping infant, and it keeps her focused and righteous. In its embrace, she’s not thinking of the warmth of his cock buried deep inside of her and the marks of his teeth on the insides of her thighs.

But even when she hates him, it’s there.

 

-XXXXXXXX-

 

He hates her even when he doesn’t, even when he can’t. He can’t hate her. Yet, he does. Does he? He _should_ , he thinks. He struggles with it, honestly. She stabbed him in the back, then once in his leg, left him to rot and only begrudgingly took him back with them. He _should_ hate her for that. But they- those _feelings_ , those pesky new emotions, thoughts, aches and pains, they won’t let him. They just won’t let him hate her. 

Bonnie Bennett.

Bonnie.

Bon.

 _Her_.

When he opened his eyes after the merge and got them- those _feelings_ , she quickly appeared right at the center of them. And she’s stayed put ever since, like a permanent fixture, something stuck to his brain like a spit out ball of chewing gum. She tore at his insides, ate away at him and haunted him wherever he went. He couldn’t stop thinking of her, of what he did to her, how he hurt her and how he needed her forgiveness. And, finally, he just needed to see her.

But now he hates that he needed – _needs_ \- any part of her at all. _Does he?_ He thinks he hates it. But he’s new at this and he has no how-to manual at his disposal. No one gave him a guide to figuring out his feelings, and there’s only so much Google can tell him. But he feels as though she makes him weak, turns him into a fool. A stammering idiot whose heart both drops and flutters at the sight of her. Dependent on her, even after he’s felt her knife in his back.

Needing anything of her without it being a means to an end is excruciating, really. It distracts him from himself and what _he_ needs and that annoys him _\- or the part of him that’s still him -_ greatly. And he _still_ can’t stop thinking about her, even now. Especially now. He might even crave her now, he thinks. Somehow, his hands itch at the mere thought of her.

Figuring out the new him is confusing and agonizing; he’s now unsure of everything, including the way he ties his shoes. The part of Luke inside of him feels like a new organ that his body wants to reject, like a Trojan horse he’s let inside of his city walls only to be taken over. That part of Luke bothers him, pains him, has taken ownership of him in a way that reminds him of a virus or a nasty infection.

And maybe Luke is just that, an infection. A sickness. A poison, a foreign object in his body that doesn’t belong but he can’t get rid of. He’s felt sick since the merge, _ruined_. Luke created a burden he never wanted, infected him with them- those _feelings_ that became his, but yet weren’t.

Are they his?

He thinks they are. His physical reactions, like the gallons of water exuding from his own eyes, indicate that they are. But, again, he’s unsure of everything.

At first, when he’d looked at Jo and Liv after the merge, he’d hear Luke’s voice, screaming at him and crying out in pain. He’d feel lumps in his throat, faint headaches and the sting of unshed tears in his eyes. He’d feel his own new guilt over his actions towards them, carried the weight of it on his back with each step in his now heavy, remorseful boots. But the attachment and care that came with it, his new need to protect them despite his own urges underneath… That had come from Luke, because it had been Luke’s in the first place. After the merge that was somehow his, yet it still wasn’t. Not entirely, anyway.

Every feeling towards them that wasn’t his guilt and his remorse had been foreign to him and he’d seen that in the way Jo and Liv looked back at him, too. The way they’d regarded him as though he was a thief. That not-so-subtle look which said _I wish you'd died instead._ They saw what he’d taken from them, what he’d stolen from Luke, and if he were honest, he saw that, too. He wasn’t really their caring, protective brother, nor had he really felt like it; he was the body that hosted their actual one. So there’d been a distance, a gap, something that had belonged more to Luke than to him.

But when he’d looked at _her_ , it had been all him, all _his_.

 _His_ turned stomach, _his_ dry throat, _his_ aching limbs and _his_ anxious need to hear her voice. He’d felt no gap, no internal war, hadn’t heard Luke’s screaming voice in the back of his mind. Looking at her, everything about her was his. She hadn’t looked at him and seen Luke; she’d seen _him_ , just _him_ , everything he’d done to her and everything in 1994 that had been theirs, in a sense. A part of him had been grateful for it, for that anger and pure loathing. He might have even needed it in that moment. Even if he’d just wanted her forgiveness and even if he’d imagined it going differently.

Somehow, it was the one thing that still reminded him of himself, his old self. And for that he’d wanted to do better, try harder, make her see the rest of him, too. Not just the part of him that had hurt her, but the part of him that didn’t want to anymore, the part that couldn’t. The part that fought, despite his urges, despite the fact that everything about her also awoke the parts in him that were dormant, the sick and twisted and familiar parts of him she already knew.

Before she left him, he’d been determined to make her see him. But in his determination he’d become foolish, so stupid. He’d miscalculated. He’d mistaken her for someone else, someone forgetful and easily swayed. It hadn’t been until she was hovering over him, her fists clenched tightly around that knife and her eyes wild and full of darkness, that he’d realized his mistake and fled. Later, he’d avoided her, even as he’d felt her eyes on him as though she was daring him. _Was she?_ She must have been. The split second their eyes did meet told him she must have been. 

Her betrayal had been maddening. But, somehow, it had made him think of her even more. Because there’d been something about it, about the way she’d said she almost killed herself because of him, and how she’d looked at him before he’d cloaked himself. And as he’d dressed his wounds, it had hit him. A nagging thought. It was like a scab he couldn’t leave alone.

_Was he hers?_

He’d started to wonder if he was hers, too. Hers, like how when looking at her, everything about her was his and not Luke’s. If the sharp pain he felt in his back and leg were hers, too. If they weren’t his wounds, but hers, because he owed her his pain and she needed to have it. He’d wondered if the others saw her like he did, the new her. If her friends saw that there was a new darkness in her, or if they _couldn’t_ see it or even understand it, because it was only for him to see.

Was her darkness his?

_And was his physical pain hers?_

Now that thought won’t let him go.

He _knows_ it is.

He _knows_ it’s his.

It has to be.

Because it had sparked an ache, ignited a craving that had nothing to do with Luke and everything with _that_ , that something he’d always felt right below the surface in her presence. It has to be his, all about him, because _that_ , that something, _that_ was his _._

Her darkness draws him in because it’s drenched in hatred but laced with _that_ , with hunger. And he’s used to hatred, so accustomed to it that even his earliest memories are marked by it. People have hated him all his life. Yet, her hatred is different. It’s hers that he seeks out, that excites him, pains him and hardens him.

Even in his sociopathy, it was there.

Even then he wanted more of it, because he’d never been hated like _that_ before, so fiercely, as if deep down she knew hating him said more about her than him. As though hating him was a lifeline. She was a feisty, frustrating ball of anger towards him with _that, that something_ underneath and he wanted to tear her apart to get to that, absorb her, completely destroy every inch and _take_ her, corrupt her, and taint her, ruin her, wreck her.

And most of all, he wanted her to let him, ask him, _beg_ him. To have her writhing underneath him, spreading her legs wider, begging for his filth, as he opened her up. _Filled_ her up. He wanted her to _let_ him drag her into his depravity, the black void that was him, into every single thing her parents must have warned her about as a child.

And even now she awakes that in him, that craving to corrupt her, feed her, still her hunger and make her feel his. To inhale her darkness, consume it like a drug and share the high. _Could they?_ He thinks so. But then there is the other part of him, that new part, that screams at him to drag her out of it instead. To take it from her, carry it on his own back and let her force it down his throat. Because she doesn’t deserve to live with it, but he does. _Could he_? He should, right? Either way, he’s hungry.

Starved, even.

He needs to see her.

When she opens the door and he lays eyes on her, his heart does that thing. That weird thing that makes his heart feel like a heavy brick inside of his chest. He's still not sure if he hates it. It's not pleasant, feels like a reminder of his mortality and vulnerability and his new loss of sensibility around her. But at the same time it's not enough, not by a long shot, and he wants more of it if it means more of her. More of him, too. 

He feels it in his abdomen as well. That strain, anticipated tension that builds and builds each time.

This is a feeling he's sure of, this one he definitely does _not_ hate.

“Hi.” 

 


	2. II.

II

“Hi,” he says.  _Hi_ , like it’s nothing.

Seven days after 1903, Bonnie lays eyes on him again.

_Run_ , she thinks.

She doesn’t.

"What the  _hell_  are you doing here?!”

It comes out much louder than intended. He’s come to her dorm and as he stands right there, right in front of her, everything inside of her screams at his presence. Everything aches, everything throbs. It hits her like a punch in her gut. The sight of him is infuriating, sparks her rage like she’s a rabid dog. But even her rage is drenched in the ache of not feeling him; it causes cracks and seeps through her dark rage like poisonous, dark mold.  

He’s wearing a black shirt with an image of a red snake at the center of it.  _Cobra Kai_ , it reads. It’s almost funny.  _Almost._ He doesn’t look like monsters should. In fact, if Bonnie didn’t know any better, he’d fit right in with her fellow students. She sees some of them from the corner of her eye, halting at the sound of her voice to watch them. But she doesn’t care. Maybe she could use an audience; a few curious, prying eyes to remind her not to stab him.  _Again_.

“Can I come in?” he simply asks. She watches his eyes roam over her body, over her short, yellow sundress, and it angers her as much as it unnerves her. His gaze resonates, feels like filth and sickness. She ignores the rush of heat and the parasite that craves it.  

No-Humanity Caroline went shopping three days ago, bought –  _compelled and stole_  – her three bright colored sundresses and then wouldn’t leave until Bonnie had picked at least one and modeled it for her, too. And she kind of liked it, liked how it clung to her body and hugged her curves. But now…

She sneers at him, “Remember how I said I’d rather die of cholera than spend time with you? That still applies!” she tries to slam the door shut, to shut him out before she slips and forgets, but he puts his foot on the threshold and his hand flat on the door with a smirk. She hates it when he smirks.

“Come on,  _Bon_. Dying is overrated, if you ask me. It loses its charm if you do it more than once. But we both know that,” he winks at her; she resists the urge to roll her eyes, giving him her best glare instead, “I won’t stay for long. It’s about the heretics. You know, the imposing threat hanging above our heads?”

His hands go up and he wiggles his fingers for emphasis. This time she doesn’t resist the urge.

Shortly after they came back from 1903, Bonnie learned three things: Lily Salvatore’s family of desiccated vampires have a name:  _Heretics_. She prefers ‘vitch’ or ‘Gemini reject freaks’. Secondly, the ripper gene is hereditary. Another thing Damon conveniently forgot to mention. And, finally, his precious _mother_  won’t stop at nothing to get her family back. Only a matter of days until Lily will come begging for the ascendant, she’s sure of it.

Bonnie sighs, as she lets Kai push against the door until there’s enough space for him to slip past her. There’s enough room for him to do so without even having to touch her, she knows there is, and she knows that  _he_  knows because how could he not, but why, why,  _why_ \- she freezes at the light brush of his shoulder against hers as he passes her and his warm breath on the nape of her neck as he leans in from behind her to murmur a  _thank you._

Her next exhale is shakier than expected.

She shuts the door and turns around, raising her chin in defiance, lips parting to speak through gritted teeth, “You have five min-”

“Where are your bloodthirsty friends?” he interrupts, as he turns and steps further into her dorm. When he turns again to face her, the gleam in his eyes is accompanied by a maniacal grin plastered on his face, “Still taking care of that pesky no-humanity thing? Were you not invited to the ripper reunion party?”

“They’ll be back any minute now,” she lies. Her nails are dug deep into her palms. It stings, but it’s a good hurt and a great reminder.

“I’ll be in and out in a jiffy,” he says. His smile says otherwise.  

He’s standing in the middle of her dorm now, right on that loose, creaking floorboard that in all those months hasn’t been fixed. She leans back against her cold, closed door. It’s as much distance as she can gather between them within the closed space that now feels about ten times smaller. Even so, his eyes are still on her as if there’s nothing else to look at and she still feels it, the strain of him and them and  _this_  and seven days of aching silence and her fury embracing her like a cloak of protection.

“So, heretics, huh. Scary bunch. Mega powerful. Really gotta do something about that, don’t we?” first his eyes soften, and then his voice, and both actions feel wrong and hollow, “But I gave everything- you know, the whole ‘ _abandon Kai in 1903 with a bunch of super hungry witchy vamp hybrids_ ’ thing some thought… I mean,  _a lot_ of thought. A lot of long internal dialogue was required. I found this website, though, Wikipedia? I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s a  _bitchin’_  invention. Do people still use that? Bitchin’?”

“Don’t push it.”

“It feels timeless, but I can’t keep up with 21st century lingo. Well, once you get sucked in- I was trying to figure out how to deal with  _your_  betrayal. Then I somehow ended up on the page about  _Rocky_ \- apparently they’re still making those- and urinary tract infections, for some reason. But I thought about it, about how you made me…  _feel?_  And I thought aboutwhy you did it.”

“No one told me you were linked to Liv and Jo.”

“So I’ve heard. Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not the only thing your  _caring,_  strait-laced friends have kept from you.”

“I may not have known, but I’m not sorry about it, if that’s what you’re thinking. If you weren’t linked to them, I would have left you in a heartbeat.”

That gets to him, she can tell. It’s the first time he looks away from her.  _Good_ , she thinks.  _It fucking should_. There’s not a single apologetic bone in her body. She feels the first beat of a drum of power, a small thrill of victory bursting out of her chest. She crosses her arms to keep it with her.

“It’s not. I just read that the best thing I can do is be honest about my feelings. So, it hurt my feelings, it really did. But I guess I’m trying to say that I get why you wanted to do it. Why you had to. Maybe even _needed_  to?”

The question comes with such an uncharacteristic tone of faux concern and understanding that it makes her want to smack him until he coughs up blood. She thinks of the rave, the diner and the snow. Everything about him that wasn’t there in 1994. It’s maddening how he looks at her now, how his eyes turn soft and bright blue and  _warm_ , when all she sees is the predator underneath. It’s like a grand, theatrical display, like the biggest performance of his life. And every sweet, soft word is one she wants him to choke on.

It has to end.  

She walks towards him with clenched fists, “You have  _no_   _idea_  what I need.”

She knows that he hates her, he has to. Every action with them has always,  _always,_  had a violent reaction, a new layer of vengeance, another brick in their wall of bloodshed, “Stop lying, Kai! Stop pretending you don’t hate me for what I did.”

 

-XXXXXXXX-

 

Kai feels the rage in her voice in his bones.

It’s almost as if her anger feeds him and makes all else fade away. As she stalks towards him, fire in her green eyes, fists clenched, he feels his dick twitch and his heart do that thing, that weird thing. Darkness is a good look on her, like everything else.

“I want to,” he says. He probably means it, too. Does he? He  _should_. “I would. Don’t think I don’t want to hate you. Would make everything about you so much easier, if I hated you. But there’s this pesky little thing about me now… I’ve changed.”

“Yeah, well, so have I!” she all but growls at him. He senses her magic, the power coursing through her veins and radiating from her form.  _She doesn’t have a clue_ , he thinks.  _She has no idea how alluring she is_. Bonnie’s magic teases him, strokes his own, stirs the beast inside of him he’s trying to lay to rest. It’s electrifying and a part of him wants to steal it,  _siphon_  it and own it. His hands itch at the mere thought of the damage he could do with it. With  _her_  if she’d only let him.

“I changed you.”

“Would you like a thank-you note?  _Thanks for the hell you put me through, let’s do it again sometime?!_  No, you know what?  _You_  didn’t change me.  _I_  changed me.”  

She’s but a mere two feet away by now, close enough again for him to reach out and touch her.  _Fuck,_  he craves to touch her, take her. Her chest is heaving, the power coursing through her so strong and pure and untainted he can’t stand it. He has to have it, has to taste it and own it and use it and  _feel_  it, feel it coursing through his veins because her magic almost feels like  _her_ , every drop of it almost drenched in  _her_ ,  _just_  her, and if it’s her then it’s  _his_ ,  _just_  his and fuck, fuck,  _fuck_ \- why won’t she let him? For a second he thinks she’ll go for it, give in to the darkness, cast a spell, a simple  _motus_  to hurt him and relish in it. Give in and bring him to his knees. It reminds him of the rave, of the power she displayed when she stormed out of there. He takes a step towards her, her magic colliding,  _fusing_ , with his own. And he feels the static sparks in the narrow distance between them. Delicious, sweet, and  _theirs_.

“Got it. Noted. But if you are capable of change, then why aren’t I? I apologized, I asked for a chance to make it up to you.”

She steps back and then again, increases the distance by another foot. It feels like ten miles. The floorboard creaks below her. “I’m not here to absolve you of your guilt, Kai. I hope it does keep you up at night, I hope it kills you when you think of everything you did to me.”

“ _Way_  harsh,” he glances down at her clenched fists. His own hand twitches, aching to brush his thumb past her knuckles, her furrowed brows and pursed lips. He feels like a schmuck, a castrated killer, a foolish bundle of nerves. His heart keeps doing that weird thing.

“Look- What do you want from me, hmm?”

"I  _wanted_  to play nice, but then you stabbed me." 

Bonnie quirks up one eyebrow, "Sound familiar? I think your five minutes are up, wouldn’t you agree?"

“ _Fine_. I need the ascendant. Last time I saw it, it was in your hands coming back from 1903. But it belongs to me, it’s official Gemini property-”

“That you need  _Bennett_  blood for-”

“…And I need it back.  _Now_. It’s urgent." 

It’s not a lie, per se. Maybe a slight  _bending_  of the truth, a dramatization of sorts. It’s not so much a need as a want, and it’s not urgent either as he’s sure she won’t use it. But it matters. The emotional part of him won't let it go, that duty he has to fulfill now as coven leader. He has to protect his coven, at all costs, from  _anyone_. From his father, who'll surely do whatever he can to take away his power. From whoever tries to hurt Liv and Jo and that kid she's carrying. His niece or nephew or  _both_.

The heretics seem to fit the bill.

"So you can release those freaks? You can’t let them out, I won’t let you." 

"So I can destroy it and keep them there,” Bonnie scoffs at him, but he ignores it, “I got what I wanted- I'm the leader now, this is my coven. Remember when I said I wanted to give the Gemini coven an  _excruciating death_? Not my finest moment... But that's what  _they'll_  do, as soon as they get out. And if I allow that to happen, then all of this will have been for nothing. Nothing to lead without a coven, am I right? And Luke... Luke would have died for nothing and the part of me that came from him would never forgive myself for that." 

“Drop the act, okay? You’re not here for the ascendant. You know I’d never give it to you,” she says. He sucks in his cheeks, repressing a smile. Her defiance arouses him, even when it annoys him.

“Smart girl.  _Perceptive._  I do want it to be destroyed, really, I do. Which I’m sure you’re already working on. But you’re right. Maybe I needed to see you. Is that a crime?” 

 

-XXXXXXXX-

 

_The worst one_ , she thinks.  _The biggest_.

“Lately, I’ve been feeling a little… Call it an identity crisis, a matter of split personalities. You see, the old me would have had something in store for you after you stabbed me in the back and tried to abandon me. A well-thought-out, perfectly executed plan, designed to make all of you miserable.” 

His faint smile is chilling, “Imagine if you’d actually left me… But the new me? Luke sabotages all of that with what he infected me with, an actual conscience. It’s… Empathy, I’m sick with empathy.” 

For a second, he looks like a sulking child, denied of his play time. Kai sighs deeply, theatrically, his shoulders slumping as though in defeat. 

"So you, how do you call it- you _merged_  with your brother in a creepy, slightly incestuous ritual and now you have all these feelings? Cry me a river,  _Malachai_ ,” she spits out his full name like venom. Like filth. She instantly regrets it. It feels more intimate than ‘Kai’.Too intimate.

“I mean, that's why you keep apologizing to me, right? Not because  _you've_ changed, but because everything you think you feel and every decent thing you do is what Luke would feel and what Luke would do." She notes that her words make his jaw clench, make him look away again. There’s a glimmer of pain in his eyes. It thrills her, provides another rush of power that shoots straight down to her gut. A sharp intake of breath follows.

"Not everything," he says, meeting her gaze. Despite herself, she falters, and a rush of heat surges through her.  _Run,_  she thinks. Every poisonous word out of his mouth scares her, as it pushes her more towards the edge of the unknown, provides a lifeline to the part of him, of them, inside of her that she can’t seem to silence. 

"I don't care."  

"I think you do." 

An exasperated laugh escapes from her before she knows it, "Well,  _I_  think I  _hate_  you." 

"I figured as much, the literal knife in my back was a good indication. But as a wise man once said, the opposite of- on second thought, it could have been Oprah- it sounds like her, doesn’t-”

“ _Kai!_ ”

“You hate me, yes. Fair enough, so do a lot of other people. You, though… Tell me, is that all?" 

"You  _stabbed_  me!” her raised voice sparks her magic. The lights of her dorm flicker off and on and off again, permanently, darkening her dorm significantly. Rays of sunshine through her window illuminate his form.

“Decidedly  _not_  what I asked.”

“You put your hands around my neck and you stabbed me and then you left me! You left me all alone,” he’s near her again, so close,  _too_  close, right in her orbit as though he never left. She tries to move, tries to tear her eyes away from his, from him looking at her like- like  _that,_  but she finds herself incapable of doing so. She can’t fight the draw of his magic, breaking through her dark rage and coaxing her to stay in place.

“So, no, that’s not  _all_ ,” the slight slump of his shoulders reveals he heard the trembling in her voice, “I can't look at you without wanting to rip your heart from your chest and wanting you to-" 

" _Do it_ ,” Kai snaps, interrupting her, “If you hate me that much, then go for it. Rip it out, it’s right here. Have at it!”

Spreading his arms, his eyes filled with mirth, he utters the words as if it’s a simple proposition, as if it’s no different than him offering her a piece of gum or a lighter for her cigarette. When she steps back, he reaches out, grasping her wrist tightly and guiding her hand to his chest, right beneath the red cobra’s tongue. His heart beats rapidly underneath the fabric of his black shirt and against her palm. There’s a hint of playfulness in his eyes, of lewd curiosity and bratty arrogance, as though he’s daring her to do it and perhaps even wants to see her try.

“If you want my heart, it’s yours,  _Bonster_ ,” she tries to pull her hand away, but he grips her wrist tighter to hold it in place, “Take it. Rip it out, go on. Do you want it?”

His smugness is infuriating, but she feels her pulse pounding in her ears, drowning out his voice and his smug,  _smug,_  face and the creaking of her floorboard. Her nails dig into his skin through his shirt. For a moment, she slips and forgets. Thinks of the marks she can make on his skin. Thinks of clutching her fist around his still beating heart and digging her bloodied nails into it until its last, weak and fighting beat. It’s tempting, the thought of ending it all, and mostly, ending him. It lures her in like the song of a siren. Blindly, obliviously and as though under a spell. Each beat of his heart is like another question mark.

_Do?_

_You?_

_Want?_

_It?_

His closeness reminds her of the first time he stood right in front of her with her hand on his chest. It was before she knew about his past, before everything. It was the first time she’d felt it, felt him, felt that pull.  _It could have been desire then_ , she thinks. Now, this moment haunts her like he himself. Her eyes move up from her palm on his chest to his neck and his carotid artery. She remembers stabbing him right there in the heat of the moment to get away. She’d killed him just like that, just for her and no one else. For a moment, a faint smile unwittingly appears on her face, but it fades as soon as she meets his taunting eyes, still fixed on her.

When she does, it dawns on her.

“Your coven,” she says, weakly. It took her what seemed like forever to say it and the realization is crippling as hell. Because it comes with a confession she never wanted to make. That, for a moment, she truly didn’t care. For a moment, there was nothing but him and her and her thirst to settle the score.

“ _Exactly_. Collateral damage: if you rip out my heart, they die,” Kai murmurs, his voice low, with every hint of playfulness gone from his eyes, “However will you deal with me now?”

She senses the sudden change in the air between them, thickened, palpable, loaded and heavy. His gaze slowly travels down Bonnie’s body, drinking her in unabashedly. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up at his inspection as it drowns out all noise, everything but him, and deprives her of all air. When his eyes meet hers again, darkened by that same hunger she runs from, she knows he has her.  _Checkmate_.

“It’s funny, I didn’t think you were like me, like the  _old me_ , I mean-”

“I’m not!” she angrily pulls her hand from his grasp. Backing away from him, she raises her hands towards him, calling upon her magic, “ _Motus!_ ”

She doesn’t wait to see him land against the wall, turning on her heel and stalking towards the door. Behind her, she hears wood breaking and a groan, followed by deep, sardonic laughter. Reaching the door, she turns the doorknob, but he catches up to her in an instant. The gush of air that meets her as the door opens is ripped away, as Kai slams the door shut with his magic.

Startled, Bonnie turns around, finding him right in front of her. She’s met with his hard, unyielding stare, fixed on her as though he’s studying her every feature, etching them into his brain. His eyes are cold, rigid, devoid of the playfulness he entered her dorm with.  _There he is_ , she thinks, the animal, the one she knows. But her insides are awakened by the knots and flutters, sparking an ache in her gut that has her at a loss for words. She feels her darkness tightening its hold on her, dulling the knots and flutters until the ache fades. Fury fills her eyes and it softens his as if her anger soothes him.

“I’m nothing like you,” she grits her teeth, “You’re a goddamned parasite.”

“Maybe you’re right. But I caught you, you sneaky little witch. I saw you considering it, allowing yourself to imagine it for a second. You _liked_  it. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Does inflicting pain on me get you all hot and bothered?” He grins widely, manically, tilting his head to the right, “Messed up, isn’t it, hate?  _So_  confusing. You wonder why I asked you if all this is, is hatred? It’s adorable, how you pretend you don’t want this just as much as you hate-”

The sound of her hand meeting his face in a slap fills her ears, fills the room, fills her lungs with the oxygen he stole. Her hand hurts and her eyes sting with tears she won’t spill, but it’s drowned out by the wave of power she feels in her lower abdomen, ripples, a spark of tension that shoots down to her belly and makes her muscles contract.

“That’s what I thought,” with a smile, he rubs his jaw as if to lessen the sting, “Does it bother you? This? How you think of me, how you want me? You must be starving.”

“I never think of you,” she lies, shaking her head for good measure, “I’d be mad if I wanted the guy who shot me with an arrow. I _can’t_  want you, I  _won’t._ ”

“ _Can’t_  want me? Or don’t?”

He raises his hand, reaching out to her, and he puts a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. She barely registers the move, but his soft touch startles her, unnerves her as much as it wakes up the part of him inside of her. She bats his hand away and he pulls it back, biting his bottom lip and raising his hands as though a form of mock surrender. But when he lowers his hands, he doesn’t step back, not one bit.

Kai parts his lips to speak, but Bonnie hears nothing but her rapid heartbeat pounding in her ears. He’s but a mere few inches away, right in front of her, too close, so close she feels his warm breaths on her face. He’s too close for her to think. Her darkness cries and begs and howls and screams at her to run back into its embrace. But she’s rooted to the ground as though she’s stuck, as though she’s tethered to him, as though her body lives by an entire other set of rules. Bonnie swallows thickly, as her eyes flicker down to his lips, to the curve of his sinful mouth. It’s inviting, more alluring than she can afford it to be. Plump and soft and like a gateway drug to the real stuff. To hell.  _Like an apple_ , she thinks.  _A red, tempting apple from the devil himself._  Her bottom lip quivers as she fights it, struggles not to crave it. It clouds her every sense, aching and burning and clawing at her insides, tears at every layer of skin and muscles and bones, and it _hurts_ , like everything about him and them and this hurts. And yet… She’s famished. Mad.  _One bite_ , she thinks. She reads her name on his lips and her eyes flicker up to meet his hooded, hungry eyes.  _Hell_ , she thinks. He looks down at her, looks down at her like  _that_ , and she wonders if, perhaps…

So she takes it.

Just  _one_  bite.

 

 


	3. III.

III

 

Like a predator, he waits.

He's never been a patient man. But he loves a good challenge and he always wins them anyway. Every second feels like a million.

But for her, he waits. For her, for  _that_ , that something, for the hunger he can't satisfy and the urge he can't resist.

He sees her struggling, her resilience wavering. She's close, he can tell, so close to letting him in. He feels the strain of it in his shoulder muscles, all his aching limbs. Her bottom lip quivers as though she's fighting herself.

But she's losing, he can tell.

When her name escapes from his lips, he knows he has her. Her eyes flicker up to meet his and everything grows dead quiet.

_There she is_ , he thinks.

_What a sight_.

-XXXXXXXX-

Lunging forward on her tiptoes, she seeks him out and grabs his face with both hands, furiously crashing her lips into his and nearly throwing off Kai's balance. Bonnie demands entrance, pushing forward until he parts his lips and lets her in, his arms circling around her waist.

Fittingly, he tastes like destruction would: Sweet enough to lure her in and addictive enough to grip her like a vice. Hungrily, they push and pull, back and forth, neither of them regaining steady ground. Her nails rake across his jaw line, scratch across his prickly stubble, as she draws him in to deepen the kiss, and his magic engulfs her, possessively clawing at her own, sparking her hunger, the ache, that dark, toxic craving building and rumbling in her gut, feeding the parasite at her core. She feels his hands roaming her body, stroking and grabbing as though he needs to touch every inch of her, sliding down her waist and back, gripping her hips to pull her body flush against his. Then, finding the curve of her ass, he hoists her up, and she hooks her legs around his waist on instinct. Seconds later, her back hits the hard, cold, wooden door, his warm body trapping her between it and himself.

The painful collision snaps her out of it. Bonnie breaks away from him once she realizes it, pushes him away by his shoulders and finds steady ground under her feet, needing air to breathe and think- think- just  _think_. When she opens her eyes and looks up at him, hands still clutching her waist, she sees the hungry, possessed look on his face, wicked darkness that reminds her of 1994. Yet despite it, perhaps because of it, she still feels hot, almost feverishly so, and it alarms her. She rushes past him, turns away from him and them and  _that_. The taste of him still on her tongue, her hand moves to her mouth, to her swollen lips. As she does, it dawns on her how much she craved him in that moment, how much she craved to sink and drown in him and them.

There are muffled voices outside of her dorm, but inside all she hears is their panting, shaky breaths. Even now, with her back turned towards him, her hunger for him is still ever present. She feels it in her bones, as though she's nothing but skin and bones glued together with this parasitic urge. It's like it's tormenting her, laughing at her maniacally as it takes her, as it drags her down and away from the darkness that vowed to protect her.

Did it ever stand a chance?

Did she?

Maybe it was already too late when Kai stepped into her dorm. When she tried to leave him, or even when he left her. Maybe it was always a losing battle from the moment she met him, when she set fire to the ground below, or even the moment she died and was sent to his prison. Because even when she hated him, even when she hates him now, there's a part of her that's his.

_Theirs_.

It pains her that they share anything at all.

But he enrages her like no other, ignites a craving that just won't leave her alone and an ugly ache that just won't stop. And she sees it in his eyes, too, the same damn thing. In him, her own personal monster. She longs for his scars and wounds and pain, because they're  _hers_. Longs for the power of bringing him down to his knees and for his submission. And for her own, to submit to sweet, sweet relief, because  _damnit_ ,  _he'd_  caused this,  _he'd_  lured her in, trapped, stabbed and left her and now nothing feels right anymore, nothing at all. Nothing but a lust for bloodshed that makes her feel good and a depraved hunger for him that makes her feel better.

"You know, maybe I  _have_  lost my damn mind," she turns around to face him, a soft laugh escaping from her despite herself. Gesturing at the space between them, she says, " _This_? Doesn't mean that I don't want you to rot in hell. I hate what you did to me. I hate you for that, I can't just forget that."

-XXXXXXXX-

"Then don't."

The words come out a little raspy, undoubtedly affected by his own arousal. He can't even think straight. He sees the same in her eyes, the longing, the ache that's begging to drag her down to his level,  _their_  level, a level of depravity he can't even fathom. An ache covered by layer on layer of rage and resentment and his blood on her knife, but laced with  _that_ , that something, with  _need_ , drenched in the same hunger he feels and he knew it, he  _knew_ \- he saw it and sensed it the minute she laid eyes on him and called upon her magic after going months without it.

She has no idea what she's unleashed.

She can't.

He's fucking starved for this, for her, his hunger for her feeling as primal and basic as the hunger he feels for steak or burgers or even his hunger for his rightful title as coven leader. It's all  _him_ , all  _his_  and  _just_  his and he wants her- fuck, fuck,  _fuck_ , so much, so, so much more than he even realized. She gave him a taste of her darkness,  _let_ him taste it, and now he wants, needs,  _must_  have every bit of it, even the pain that comes with it. _Especially_  the pain that comes with it.

"Tell me to leave."

He takes a step towards her and before he even knows it, he's right in front of her again,  _again_  as if he can't even help himself, as if any distance is excruciating. Maybe he can't. Maybe it is. He raises his hand to her jaw, placing his thumb right over her lips, tracing them curiously. Her soft, plump lips make him feel an animal, like a predator of nature, preying on such softness only to annihilate it. When he removes his thumb, rests it on the corner of her mouth, her tongue darts out, swiping past her bottom lip as though to taste his touch. A thrilling rush shoots through him. He's a bundle of nerves, every sense heightened by the pull towards her.

He strokes her jaw, trailing his hand from her jawline to her neck, as he leans in and swiftly closes the distance between them. His thumb caresses her throat, his hand curved around her nape, and with his other hand he pulls her in, pulls her close, pulls her against him and makes her feel the heat of his body. She lets him in, sighing into the kiss like it's a relief, as though the minute she just spent without was a long drought, but soon she grows needy, becomes forceful and careless and overwhelming as her lips respond to his and his tongue swipes across hers.

Bonnie kisses him as though even this is a fight, as though she wants to inhale him yet destroy him at the same time. He responds to her just as hungrily, letting go of his restraint one bit at a time, relishing in her sweet taste that only adds to his need to consume every part of her. She claws at him, painfully digs her nails into his arms, his shoulders and sides, tearing at his shirt, only breaking away from his mouth for seconds to nip at his lips and soothe the sting with her tongue right after. It hurts him just as much as it hardens him.

They move, somehow; stumbling, clumsily taking steps between kisses, until his calves hit her bed, forcing them to break apart. Before he knows it, her hands move to his shoulders, pushing him down hard until he's seated on her bed. Seated, looking up at her and reveling in the sight of her, Kai finally notices how tight his jeans have become and how his dick is throbbing and aching to be released from its constraints. Aching for her, her wetness, her hot, slick walls wrapped and clenched around him as he fills her up and corrupts her, as she milks him and marks him.  _Kills_ him. Or he kills  _her_ , taints her, fucks the darkness right out of her or into her or  _them_  or-

She straddles him and kills his thoughts, every one of them, both knees on the outsides of his thighs, hands on his throat, thumbs pressing hard, and soft, plump lips on his. Bonnie grinds down on his groin, only adding to his ache, his hard, throbbing ache, as her tongue roams his mouth roughly, recklessly, selfishly.

" _Fuck,"_  he chokes out in a moment of separation, "Friction." She silences him with her mouth, all teeth and tongue and fury, and she grinds down harder, on purpose, tightening her grip on him with her knees. His hands sneak underneath her sundress, hiking it up, stroking her skin from her knees to her inner thighs, and grazing the fabric of her panties with his knuckles. She responds to his touch with a strangled noise, breaking their kiss.

Running his hand through her hair, he tilts her head back to expose her throat to him, leaning in and pressing his lips against her skin, as his other hand grabs her ass to pull her into his groin. The taste of her skin drives him mad, fueling his hunger for her and his desire to taste every inch of her and then some. He sucks on the exposed skin, feeling the vibrations of her moans from deep in her throat.

Her hands claw at his shirt, hurriedly pulling at the fabric.

" _Off._ "

-XXXXXXXX-

_Cobra Kai_  separates from his body, becoming a crumpled heap on the floor next to his kicked-off shoes. Black, moist panties follow, and when she straddles him again, knees dug deep into her mattress, his erection presses against her through rough denim fabric.

"We're entering dangerous territory, Bon," he murmurs against her jaw, inhaling her scent. His hand settles on her lower back, pressing, holding her steadily in place. With his other hand, he reaches down and runs his knuckles down her slit, before circling her clit with his thumb. She rolls her hips against his hand, wanting more of his touch, even closer, "No going back, I won't let you."

"How?  _How_  could I-," she says, her breath hitching in her throat. Her cheeks are flaming hot with arousal, and her pussy throbs like her heartbeat, "Wouldn't even know how."

He captures her mouth in an open-mouthed kiss, as he strokes her slit, teasingly parts her wet folds, before sliding in his finger, coated in her juices. Pushing deeper into her throbbing walls, he develops a slow, torturous rhythm. She shuts her eyes, tilting her head back as he adds a second and third moments later, speeding up and thrusting into her faster and she feels it approaching, pure ecstasy, feels the slow burn of it building in her belly. Arms laced around his neck, she threads her fingers through his hair, as her breaths turn shallow, reducing them to shallow gasps in the back of her throat and she feels dizzy, delirious as she rides his hand, eagerly opening up for him and wantonly trashing against it. She feels herself slipping, tumbling into madness of the purest kind, feels her orgasm building, feels tight heat quenching her thirst as he strokes her, drives his fingers inside faster and faster and  _better_  and  _damnit_  she'll snap if he- if he  _doesn't_ -

A sudden, sharp sensation, a pinch on her ass, causes her to open her eyes, hazy and possessed, as he keeps stroking her clit with his thumb. When she meets his, cold and dark and wicked, it sparks an old feeling of fear mixed with lustful, seething curiosity. When he curls his fingers inside of her  _just_  a little,  _just_  right  _there_ , she sees him, the old him, the one who killed her, and it makes her come with a thundering shock.

Pulling her closer, he swallows her moans, making her feel heady and crazed as she relishes in her high, her clenching muscles around his thrusting fingers. In the distance she hears the crackling sparks of ignited fire in her fireplace, the effects of her magic, or his, or maybe even theirs. His smug,  _smug_ , grin against her mouth triggers her rage, triggers her need for destruction. She takes his bottom lip into her mouth, before sinking her teeth into it, biting hard until he groans and pulls away. She tastes coppery blood that must be his and hears a dark laugh that must be hers, cut short when he slides out his fingers so abruptly it makes her feel empty.

" _Kai,_ " she doesn't recognize her own voice, laced with need.

He ignores her plea. There's still a smudge of blood on his bottom lip, but he makes no effort to wipe it off. Instead, he licks his fingers clean of her juices, removing them with a pop when he's done. Then, he grasps her chin, digging his fingertips into her cheeks before crashing his lips into hers and kissing her harshly. His tongue rolls over hers, tastes of honey, his blood and herself. She moans into his mouth, taking it all in, accepting what he's offering her and letting him drag her deeper into hysteria. She's never felt more famished, more primal. The taste of Kai, of them, is intoxicating, casts out the darkness that makes her hate him and replaces it with the darkness that makes her want him.  _Need him_ , she thinks, but she instantly kills the thought.

Rough denim hurriedly grazes her ass, then soft polyester. Her sundress follows, hiked up and pulled off in his haste, covering the crumpled heap like a yellow blanket. It barely takes a second, but then he's right there, groping, kneading her breasts and sucking hard on her collarbone, hard enough to leave a mark. And she can't think, not anymore, there's nothing but hunger that despite her orgasm hasn't dissipated but instead grown and spread as though it's latched onto her like a damn leech. A parasite. Somewhere, _somewhere_  in the back of her mind, she wants to think, rationalize and run, but there's nothing else but his touch, taking every part of her and making her want to let him.

"All I've thought about, every fucking minute since you've been back," he inhales her scent again,  _again_  as though he can't get enough of it, laps at her skin down to her breasts, tending to each of them, one then the other, with each circling wet motion of his tongue around her nipples, hardening them. She runs her hands through his hair, grinding down in his lap to find his hard cock sliding past her slit.

But then he kisses her sternum, nips her right beneath her breast, right over her scar as though it's his, like it's not hers but his, but it's not, it can't be and that gets to her, sucks the air right out of her lungs, presses her throat shut and tugs at her heart, because  _that_  feels a little too messed up. Too twisted, too sick, sick like him and this and  _shit,_  she can feel it, shivers down her skin, heat pooling low and throbbing, aching flesh as if it's good and welcomed and clean and  _should_  make her feel like  _this_. And she can't, she won't. She can't let him. It's not his scar, it's hers.

She tugs his hair, hard, shoves him by his shoulders until he's flat on his back, keeping him down with all the strength she can muster.  _Better,_  she thinks.

"Don't. Move."

-XXXXXXXX-

"Now where's the fun in-," his smirk fades as soon as Bonnie reaches behind her and takes his cock in her hand, stroking him and guiding him to her entrance. Slick heat follows, her sweet, tight, wet cunt, as she lowers herself down on his cock until he's buried inside of her to the hilt. Hands splayed over his chest, she keeps him down, adjusting to the feel of him. It's a sight for sore eyes if there ever was one; golden brown skin, soft curves and perky, supple breasts. Hooded eyes half shut in ecstasy, chest heaving as she alternates between slightly parted lips and biting her bottom lip. Yet all he wants is to distort the image. Corrupt it and taint it and add to her scars.  _His._

"Doesn't hating me feel absolutely fantastic?" he asks, his voice low and deep, unable to mask how far gone he is.

It earns him an exasperated laugh, cut short for a moan when he shifts, trailing his hands from her knees up to her hips, grabbing her and raising her slightly, only to pull her down harder, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open in surprise. Then, her eyes turn dark, meet his with a glare that sends a rush of heat straight to his gut. Her hands cover his, prying them off her skin, and she interlocks their fingers, only to pin his hands above his head, pushing him down. He lets her.

"Feisty," her face is right above his, her swollen lips nearly touching his, and their breaths intermingling, "Is this how you like it, me at your mercy?" He reaches for her, reaches up and brushes his lips past hers, but she shoves him back down by his wrists.

"I said, don't- Don't.  _Move_ ," rolling her hips, she takes him in deeper, the thrill of it so good it's maddening, so good it makes him hate her just a little because  _fuck_ \- he wants to let her, he really, really does, but he  _needs_  to lose it, go off and take and have her how  _he_  wants her and she's slick and tight and hot and why- why-  _why_  won't she just let  _him_? He groans when she rises, just a little, squeezing his wrists tightly for purchase, only to slam herself down on him. She rolls her hips again, starts riding him, milking him and setting the pace as though  _she's_ in control and he shifts as much as he can because  _fuck that, he is_ , makes each slide down just a little better, deeper than she can on her own, faster than she'd like. With each passing aching second he grows hungrier. Falls deeper into that monstrous void where he almost forgets himself, almost loses himself in her divine cunt accepting his ruin and her perfect, bouncing tits with drops of sweat right between them. She develops a good rhythm, riding him so damn good he can't fucking  _think_ , her eyes dark and hazy and hooded like he's never seen them. And he can tell she's getting closer, can tell she's losing focus, and  _just_  when she tilts her head back as though it's too much, as though she's too close to even move an inch _, just_  when her grip on him loosens, he grabs her wrists, taking her by surprise. Swiftly, he sits up, slides out of her and flips them before she can stop him.

"Enough," he growls, grabbing her by her waist and positioning her, teasing her slit with the head of his cock.

"I wasn't-," his mouth swallows her words, and then her moan, as he parts her wet folds and enters her in one long stroke. Her hands settle around his neck when they break apart, keeping him low, his face near inches away from hers, as he pulls back and thrusts into her again, magic clashing, lips brushing, breaths shallow. She holds his gaze defiantly, doesn't let him tear his eyes away, looks up at him like he didn't think she ever would. He wants to savor it but he can't go easy on her and this, can't slow down; he's too mad with hunger, so famished he can't help but drive into her, urgently, roughly, possessed by the feel of every contracting muscle around his dick and every bit of her wet, slick throbbing walls. She loses control with him, responding to his body like it's all she knows and he sees in her eyes that she's right there with him, losing her mind like him, gasping, aching like him and  _for_  him and  _shit_ \- Everything about him, all of this, it's  _hers-_  because Bonnie's looking at him like  _that_  and fuck, fuck,  _fuck_ \- she has her hand clutched around his beating heart even when she can't rip it out.

_Damn her_.

He's hers, even if she won't be his.

This, them, it's him being greedy, he knows that. Maybe he wants too much, expects too much if he wants her just like this every damn minute of every damn day. But maybe, just maybe, they both are. Hungry for each other and hungry for their joint power. The air around them is drenched in their magic. He wants every drop of it, of her. Every bit of this high. He can't go back to not feeling her, he won't.

She fights him even now. Her magic strokes his skin, crackling electricity right underneath her fingertips from his neck down to his hard, lean chest to his sides before circling her arms around him and pulling him even closer. He buries his head in the crook of her neck, taking in their joined scent like it's his drug, nipping on exposed skin, feeling tight, hot tension building as he drives into her with frenzied thrusts. Her nails dig deep into his skin, raking his back and sides, harder each time.

It isn't until she's midway through the spell that he realizes it, that it registers. It gets lost right between two breathless moans and another loud, bruising smash of her bedpost against her dorm wall. With her fingernails she claws at the skin on his back, burns him, marks him right under his shoulder blades. Kai feels the cuts, the slashes, feels his skin breaking and the sting of salty sweat, feels warm blood escaping him, dripping out of his wounds and down his sides. But she's so wet and good and hot and  _un-fucking-believable_  clenched around him that he doesn't care, keeps going; it hurts but it only makes him harder, only makes him hungrier and only makes her sweeter.

He groans when Bonnie dips her fingertips into his wounds, when she traces the lines of open skin down his back, but he feels the pressure deep and low in his abdomen, the sweet, throbbing ache, taking over every sense, building right below the surface. Kai hears her panting breaths, her soft, needy  _whines_ , her pleading, desperate mewls and her gasp as she gets there. Her body tenses as she comes, crying out, before he feels her shudder around him and arch her back against him, her hard nipples grazing past his chest. As she revels in the high of them, the ecstasy of her orgasm, he increases his pace, continues to thrust into her, madly, blindly, sloppier as he gets closer.

She sends him over the edge when she whimpers his name.

-XXXXXXXX-

"You should go," she says, her eyes fixed on the ceiling above, "You can't be here when Elena or Caroline comes back."

She doesn't know how long it's been. Kai's on his side right next to her, propped up one elbow, and she feels his eyes on her, but she can't even look at him. His arm weighs heavily on her abdomen, keeping her in place like an anchor. Every now and then he winces in pain from the sting of the open wounds on his back.

"Yeah, wouldn't want your friends to know you've been lying with the enemy."

She traces a line down his arm with her bloodstained fingers. His dick twitches against her hip in response. Somehow, the sight of his dried blood on her hands pleases her, sends ripples of heat right back to her abdomen. She still craves Kai like it never happened, like she never let him touch her with the same hands he used to choke her.

She feels a lump in her throat as she exhales a shaky breath, "We were reckless-  _too_  reckless, Kai, we're lucky no one walked in on us."

"I'm sure we would have given them one hell of a show," he says, followed by a dark chuckle that makes her want to wring his neck, "But, maybe you're right, what with me being the one and only Gemini coven leader and all- I have to uphold that spotless reputation."

"Yes, because  _that's_  the problem, you and your reputation."

She doesn't even have to look at him to see it, the smug grin plastered on his face, "What would they think of me if they knew I'd been…  _fornicating_  with a  _Bennett_  witch? Which, speaking of, and under the guise of a slightly different kind of recklessness… I know a spell, a Gemini spell to protect us this time. A Parker-Bennett kid would be a sure sign of an impending apocalypse, no?"

She shuts her eyes, covering her face with her hands and groaning at the thought of her recklessness. It's frightening. She's never been this careless before, this destructive to her own sanity, never lost it to the point where her damn common sense flew out the window. She hears the call of her chosen darkness; dark, blind hatred reclaiming her.

" _This_  time?" her laugh sounds more bitter than intended, "That's awfully presumptuous, don't you think?"

"Isn't this much more fun than stabbing me?"

" _This_  was a moment of- of madness.  _One_. Or maybe I just needed to get you out of my system."

"Maybe," he pulls her towards him, turns her on her side until she's facing him, "Or maybe now I'm  _in_  your system."

Her eyes flicker down to his lips. A little too long, because he cups her face and brings her closer until his lips are nearly touching hers. She closes the distance between them, kissing him ravenously. Kai's hands move down her body, trail down her curves and back. He kneads her ass, grabbing her to lift her. Before she knows it, she's on top of him, feeling his growing hardness against her. She breaks away from him, sitting up. Looking into his eyes, Bonnie sees nothing but hunger, again. His eyes are as dark as hers must be, she thinks.

She's still starved for more of him, of them, on the verge of dripping wetness for his touch and his submission. Is this the state of delirium she was afraid of? An insatiable appetite for her destruction and his pain? Hunger for his blood on her body, his open wounds, his pulsing dick inside of her or the flick of his tongue?

"Like I said, dangerous territory, Bon. You're forgetting that you weren't alone in this, that I felt that same power. Good luck staying away from that. Besides,  _one_ moment of madness probably made you feel better than anything has since you came back."

"What makes you so sure?"

"This," he caresses her scar with his thumb. This time she lets him.

"And the ones on my back."

-XXXXXXXX-

The sound of her door slamming shut startles her, as she washes his blood off her hands. She doesn't know what she expected, but it hurts.  _Kai_  hurts. Bonnie wonders how long she'll need to crawl out of this, to find back the dark rage that covered up the all-consuming ache. Then, she wonders if she even wants to.

A hard knock on the door followed by a muffled voice interrupts her stream of thought. She pulls her dress over her head, straightening it while looking in the mirror. Walking out of the bathroom, she notices that he's left no trace of himself. The spot where he hit the wall is fixed, the fire in her fireplace has died down and her sheets are clean and good as new.

His absence is troubling, somehow.

Another knock follows and it becomes clear to her whose voice is at the other end of the door. Bonnie checks the room once more before opening the door for him.

Damon walks in, frantic and angry.

"I just saw our friendly neighborhood psycho down the hall. Did he hurt you? Say the word and I'll-"

"Kai was just here for the ascendant. But I didn't give him what he wanted." Her voice is slightly hoarse. Bonnie hopes he doesn't notice, that he misses her flushed cheeks and her pupils, dilated with the bit of hunger still present. Still, his face shows signs of disbelief. He studies her for a while, but he doesn't speak. It's unnerving.

"Why are you here, Damon?"

"Just checking in, Bon Bon. Rightfully so, apparently. I can smell him all over this dorm."

"And I can smell all your lies. Why are you really here?"

"The ascendant. My mother… I need it."

"Of course you do. Did you miss the part where I said I didn't give it to Kai either?"

Bonnie crosses her arms as a barrier. She glares at Damon, as he continues to study her and the room in silence. Damon's selfish dishonesty still enrages her. They haven't talked about any of yet, not really. But the more she finds out he's kept from her, the more she's at a loss for words.

"Anyway, I have somewhere I have to be, so…" she says, breaking the silence, "Don't come asking for the ascendant again if you know what's good for you."

Bonnie grabs her bag, the ascendant still in it safely tucked away, and moves toward the doorway. She doesn't know where she's headed to, but she doesn't care. She wants air, fresh air to clear her mind of this and Kai and them and every inch of skin she let him have.

But Damon stops her dead in her tracks.

"Damon…"

"My mother's patience is wearing thin."

"So is mine."

"She found out about the cure. She hid it somewhere and now she's using it as leverage. Can't you do your  _witchy woo thing_  and track it down, make this go away, help me get it back so I can give it to Elena?"

"Not. My. Problem," she says, "Maybe you shouldn't have lied. Not to her, and not to me… Lock the door when you leave."

He narrows his eyes at her, his displeasure apparent, but it doesn't hit her in that spot, the other sweet spot, that _Damon_  spot he's created in her brain by virtue of months of isolation.

She brushes past him, opening the door before he can respond.

When the door slams shut behind her, she's met with nothing but relief.


End file.
